Playing Hooky with the Ditty Bops

As previously reported, I took the day off work in order to attend a free performance by the Ditty Bops. I wish I had taken my digital camera so I could show you a picture of Amanda with her washboard contraption, replete with cymbal and cowbell attachments, surreal against a background of shelves of books.

The Ditty Bops played a set of five songs from their new CD, which I purchased last week for $14.99 and was on sale today for $10.99. (Isn’t that the way it always works?) I’m sure the show tonight at the Ark includes many more props than the kazoos and party-favor blow-out noisemakers. I've heard there's a pagoda involved.

And I hope the crowd at the Ark is a little more lively than the Borders attendees. The folks in the seats might as well have been watching television in their living rooms, staring ahead and applauding politely between songs. (Years ago at a Sting concert a friend and I made exactly the same observation.) C’mon people! This is awesome music! Tap a foot, wiggle a little bit. Even the kids weren’t dancing. I think I was the only person singing along. Well, maybe the enthusiastic guy on the other side of the stationery rack was singing along; I couldn’t see his face, only his hand gestures. Maybe no one knew the words because everyone else waited for the CD to be on sale?

ps. Hat-tip to D. for alerting me to the NPR interview of the Ditty Bops. The Ditty Bops are everywhere!

Squeal!

The Ditty Bops are coming to Ann Arbor!

In addition to the show at the Ark, they're also making a free appearance at Border's downtown over the lunch hour. I took the day off just so I can go see them. My soul needs it.

A Wee Question

Why does music you like sound even better when it's loud?

An Addition to the Neighborhood Wildlife Siting List

Skunks.

After another evening endured in my sweltering cave, windows closed, drapes shut, fan blaring to little avail against the heat and humidity, I finally threw the apartment open after sundown to let the breeze in. It's finally cooler outside than inside.

To give myself a reprieve from heat and work, I shut off the computer, mixed myself a kimjito* (the Kimmijo recipe for a mojito, since I have no idea whether or not I'm making it correctly), and sat outside for a spell, watching the fireflies wink on and off and offering up my smooth white skin to the mandibles of Michigan's state bird, the mosquito.

I heard a faint squeak. I looked up to see a strip of black shag carpet undulating across the street. I saw a white dot at the trailing end. Ah, a wee skunk. It wiggled over to the shrubbery at the end of the driveway belonging to the Mexican landscapers. ("That's really stereotypical," new friend N. commented, eyeing me somewhat suspiciously. "I can't help it," I replied. "It's what they do. See, it's right there on the side of their beater pick-up truck.") Shortly thereafter, an even smaller skunk emerged from beneath the neighbor's fence and took a similar path to meet, presumably, its sibling. I smiled and issued a prayer that neither of them will be hit by a car.

* Kimijto recipe

Put one teaspoon sugar in glass. Squeeze juice of half a lime over sugar and stir to dissolve. Add five or six good-sized mint leaves and muddle with a wooden spoon until scent of mint is released. Fill glass with ice. Pour over ice 2 oz. light rum and 1 oz. sparkling water. Stir, put on Tito Puente, and enjoy.

Dang, it’s hot tonight, like 88° at 10:30 and no air’s movin’ hot. Hot like Spanish moss in the cypress swamp hot. Hot like ripe tomatoes in the sun hot.

The night reminds me of others, when we could see Boötes and Ursa Major from one bedroom window, and Cassiopea and Cepheus from the other. When the upstairs got too stifling, we’d slip out the screen door to the glider on the porch and Daddy would ask me who the president was and I would proudly answer, “Jimmy Carter.” The swimming pool rippled under its blue cover as another June bug hit the surface. You could practically hear the zucchinis stretching their green skins in the darkness. In the morning, we’d find one, two feet long, that must have escaped our notice under a leaf for weeks. Or only a humid night or two.

The cicadas ceased their electric buzz when the wind started to stir the dust under the swing set. Distant rumbling came closer and dime-sized splatters appeared on the picnic table. They spread out, became quarter-sized, grew together. We were safe on our square of Astroturf beneath the green corrugated roof, our backs to the west, watching the thunderstorm blow by us, able to see it only when it was past us, receding into someone else’s future to our east.

I Keep Meaning to Post

Really, I do. There are a dozen things I could, need to write about, even, but it just doesn't seem to be coming. I could write about the rain today, or what Little Caesar's smells like wafting across the lawn at 9:00 in the morning, or about the guy I met who has a parrot named Bebe Rebozo. I could write about the combination vegan/Polish Easter dinner I attended in April. I could write about the family in front of me in line at Meijer stuffing their faces with pretzels they hadn't yet paid for in such a way that they left no room for doubt that humans are descended from apes. I have blog post titles already! Qooking with Quorn! Ann Arbor Crows!

So why isn't it happening?

Hawk in the Rain: Now SBC-Free!

At last, I am back online at home. SBC/AT&T/Ma Bell/Whoever-They-Are-Now successfully lost me as a customer when they DENIED me service after Wayne, their customer service rep who handled transfer of my accounts to the new location, told me everything was going to be just hunky dory. Oh, their engineers tried digging up the wires and connecting me through another router, but blind moles move faster and the folks in billing, who had no idea what engineering was up to, were snotty about my not paying the bill for service they denied me. I wasn't snotty to them. I paid the rest of the bill without a peep of protest, just not the part for the DSL THAT WASN'T ON FOR TWO WEEKS.

*ahem*

Anyway, I am happily connected now, relieved to have real-time weather radar on demand and downloading Keane songs.

Officially an Ann Arborite

The days since my last post have been blurry. There was quite a bit of sweating and grunting over a period of three days whilst wrestling furniture down the stairs of a 100-year-old Victorian house. The matress and box springs came out the window a la Monty Python's Holy Grail. The first night in the new place I had no bed and no hot water. I made several vaguely remembered sad and lonely late-night phone calls. The following day, still hot and sticky and feeling extra-bummed about leaving Chelsea, I sat down on the only box-free surface - the toilet - and wept like a five-year-old.

But I still managed to get a date that week! After beers at Arbor Brewing, we went over to Top of the Park for the free movie, which turned out to be Monty Python's Holy Grail.

Most of my time has been spent at the apartment, making it look more like home. In my first week I have already run over and completely crushed the downspouting in the back yard with my car and put more nail holes in the walls than the landlord probably anticipated. The front of the apartment is a Gobi desert of hardened earth, with street-tough thistles clawing their way through. Pots of coneflowers and daisies await transplantation. They seem happier than they did in Chelsea, having come into full bloom in the last three days.

On my first perambulation around the neighborhood, I poked into Eberwhite Woods for a minute, and found a downy woodpecker feather. Otherwise, the inventory of wildlife around the new place is something like this: house sparrow, house sparrow, house sparrow, house sparrow, starling, starling, starling, sub-adult robin, cardinal, cardinal, house sparrow, house sparrow, juvenile Homo sapiens, house sparrow, little bunny rabbit, starling, starling, house sparrow, house sparrow, house sparrow, house sparrow.

And spiders. I have many spider friends in my new place. And earwigs who want to live in my magazines and I'm afraid I'm going to have evict them.

The cat was a little jumpy for a day or two, but she's doing well. The anti-histamines prescribed for her allergic skin have not been working, probably because they aren't particularly effective when Itchykitty Skinnybutt spits them out under the refrigerator.

And yay! for the post office. Law School P's key found its way to me. He asked what he could do for me for taking care of his cats. I told him to bring me a shrubbery.

Last Post from Chelsea

Here it is, hawklets, my last night in Chelsea. I am sitting beside the astonishing number of boxes it took to pack up the desk. Sylvie watched the operation with whisker-quivering curiosity and couldn't wait to explore the terra nova of the empty shelf.



I believe the move will be positive. Still, it's hard to embrace a change like this when the kosmos thrusts it upon you, rather than letting you think you made a decision and that you have some control.

Jim Morrison is growling "The future's uncertain and the end is always near," somewhere in the vicinity of my right ear. I wish he'd stop.

This morning I walked up to the farmer's market and heard the train whistle blow. I almost cried. I hope the train whistle doesn't blow while I'm turning in the keys to house's new owner. I really don't want to almost cry in front of her.

I am thankful that my new swingin' pad is near enough that I can move stuff carload by carload over a few days. Gives me some time to get used to the idea. Looking at my tv and stereo and yarn in the new place, I felt a little bit at home there already this afternoon. And I'm reading up on how to care for hardwood floors, 'cuz my new ones are filthy. I Swiffered them, but walking in bare feet still turned my soles sooty.

I have dishes to pack yet tonight, so I'll be ready to roll when B & D get here tomorrow with the truck.

Let it roll, baby, roll.

Glow

Last Wednesday night I shut down the computer, set the alarm, and tumbled into bed. A minute later, Sylvie jumped up and I opened my eyes as she nuzzled my nose in the dark, then settled down by my elbow.

Something above the curtains winked greenly. Car headlights sweep the ceiling, and the buttons on the DSL box glows all night, so I thought nothing of a small light in the room.

Until the cat made a slashing leap across my body. My eyes popped open to see the green glow six inches away from my face. *flash*flash*flash* It floated soundlessly towards the wall. *flash*flash*flash* I had a lightning bug in my bedroom.

First I tried to ignore it. I wanted to sleep, but evidently Sylvie determined to catch this blinking light, so much like a fun laser pointer game. She was going to walk all over me all night.

I shuffled out to the kitchen in search of a jar to catch the beetle in. I came up with an empty cat food can and a folded paper towel. Luckily the lightning bug was very close to the wall. Without turning the lights on, I centered the can over the ethereal glow and brushed the insect in.

I covered the can with the paper towel. *flash*flash*flash* filtered through the towel, reminding me of childhood games played with a flashlight. Humid air left over after the evening’s storms rolled into the living room as I lifted the screen and shook the bug into the thick night. *flash* then he was gone from view.

After a moment’s hesitation, I followed him. I flip-flopped out to the backyard where myriads of his kind pulsed over the knee-high weeds, dipped toward the short grass, drifted slowly heavenward. They semaphored their desire with the dust of long-imploded stars, unknowingly signaling to the same dust in me.